Yes, this is a boring watercolor blog and we will get around to discussing how I stole everything possible from Claude Monet for this week’s dabbling but, Dear Readers, you know we have to talk about the fire-breather in the room, Michelle Wolf.
Comedian Michelle Wolf did a 19-minute roast of Washington D.C.’s hack politicians, spineless journalists, and their pathetic enablers at last Sunday night’s White House Correspondents Dinner and she burned it to the ground. I watched the whole thing and I thought she was perfect. (Note: as of May 3, Michelle Wolf’s bit has been viewed on the C-Span site a record-breaking 4.4 million times. I think people pretty much like the way Michelle Wolf spoke truth to power.)
The best Twitter response I read, regarding the Republicans’ palpitations over the forcefulness of Michelle Wolf’s jokes (lordy and mercy me, the language!!) was: Relax Republicans. It’s just locker room talk.
The Republicans’ indignation is Fake News! Totally Fake!! It’s a witch hunt!!
My second-favorite joke of the evening was the one about lying’ sack o’ shit Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ that ended with the punch line “smokey eye”, which in case if you don’t know what a smokey eye is, it is this:
The joke was about how she lies, and not about how ugly she is (inside and out). But it was interesting to note that when she appeared on Fox News four days later, on Thursday morning , she was not wearing her trade mark “smokey eye”:
Do you think it’s because Sarah Huckabee Sanders just can’t face herself in the mirror any more?
Whatever. Like I mentioned, that “smokey eye” joke was my second-favorite part of Michelle Wolf’s routine. My first fave part of Michelle Wolf’s take-down was her several minute’s worth of material about how President der Drumpf is broke. I’m sure that her riffing on how little money der Drumpf gets der Drumpf where it hurts him most. I LOVED it. She began:
“People call Trump names all the time. And look, I could call Trump a racist or a misogynist or xenophobic or unstable or incompetent or impotent. But he’s heard all of those, and he doesn’t care. So tonight, I’m going to try to make fun of the president in a new way, in a way that I think will really get him. Mr. President: I don’t think you’re very rich. Like, I think you might be rich in Idaho, but in New York you’re [only] doing fine.”
I have always maintained that der Drumpf is not nearly as rich as he has bullshitted everyone into believing he is, mostly because everything he does is penny-ante small-time cons, and because he was and talks like a poor person trying to act like he has money and getting all the tell-tale “tells” wrong. All that glitz, and bragging, and of course his fake Renoir:
The un-funny Fran Leibowitz got it right when she wrote “Trump is a poor person’s idea of what a rich person is.”
Milton Pedraza, chief executive of the Luxury Institute, a consultant to luxury brands, says that Trump is “A caricature of what wealth is — as opposed to what real wealth is,” and says Trump sold his cheap-ass “luxury” steaks, vodka, water, deodorant, university, ties, perfume, and etc. to those “who didn’t know the difference.”
So, yeah, just because Sarah Huckabee Sanders is ugly doesn’t mean you can’t make jokes about how she much she lies. Because she is evil.
So let’s talk about something else near and dear to my heart: The Incredibly Persistent Pile of Snow.
I discovered this heap o’ snow on April 12 (in a very inconvenient parking lot at a shopping center here on the north shore of Long Island) when it was still bigger than my car. I was impressed! We had not had snow fall since April 1, when a modest one-day blizzard didn’t even stay long enough for me to get out the snow shovel.
I became strangely enamored of this pile of snow, with a fondness that I usually reserve for puppies and Pinot Grigio. So here’s how our fond affair went down last week:
This Incredibly Persistent Pile of Snow deserves a close up:
This special pile of snow is about the size of a bread box, ha ha, nobody knows what a bread box is anymore. It’s about the size of a boom box. Ha ha! Nobody knows what a boom box is any more! It’s about the size of a Selectric…OK, this is getting tedious.
I was rooting for this pile of sow. I was certain that this pile of snow had the Right Stuff, the gumption and the heart, to make it to May 2, and beyond.
So here’s what I found on May 2:
Let me explain that here on the North Shore of Long Island, we take pride in our parking lots. And truth to tell, that pile of snow was very daggy. There were candy wrappers and old newspapers and other bits of unsightly trash embedded in it, and yes, there was even a pair of socks mixed in there with the usual gravel bits and fir tree droppings:
Well, of course the managers of this parking lot came in and cleared all that grunginess away. They also mulched the parking lot’s flowers beds. It’s a fancy parking lot.
So we will never know if our Incredibly Persistent Pile of Snow could have Gone All The Way. Sad!
Let’s let Bibs cheer us up:
The temperatures were soaring here on the North Shore of Long Island this past week and we were loving it. 90 degrees yesterday! Top Cat and I hauled the patio furniture out from storage, finally, and set up our kitchen patio, and Bibs was the only cat smart enough to make use of the fine weather.
We also wanted to put the Adirondack chairs out in the back yard, and position them for sun set watching, but I can’t sit on an Adirondack chair without having the padding of a nice cushion, and all our Adirondack chair cushions were being used (and abused):
Right. Let’s get down to business.
This:
This was an exercise I did just so I could find out how Claude Monet “did” weeping willows, because it’s different to how I “do” weeping willows and he’s the most famous artist in the world so, like, I make it a point to steal from the best:
When you look closely at Monet’s weeping willow fronds, they are much more complex than you’d think:
On the whole, I think Monet’s brush strokes are very hammy and clumsy, but I have to admit that these lines are delicate and masterful. If I was going to copy them, the task would be as challenging as if I were forging his handwriting — these strokes are very personal and individual. And to think that he did this when he was well into his late 70s!
There was only one thing to do. I had to trace them:
And of course, this tracing is only the short-hand version of what Monet does. But that’s what I used when I painted my version of his Grand Decoration (now hanging in the Jeu de Paume in Paris).
And yes, there is a huge difference between Monet’s painting and my copy. It’s not easy to copy an oil painting in watercolor. And I rarely copy paintings. But it was very instructful to try to mimic Monet, and I have to say that I highly recommend it.
Meanwhile, on the den patio (we are a two-patio family) our neighbor’ cat, Dennis, is waiting for us to come out and play:
I love it that when Dennis saw me taking his picture from the den window, he decided to pose for me but, like, all non-chalant:
Have a great weekend, everyone. And if the latest outrage from der Drumpf leaves you feeling all chalant, take a tip from Taffy:
Keep Calm and go for a roll in the dirt. Or go for a glass of wine. Wine is good, too.
Memes stolen from Yellow Dog Granny @ Blogspot.com.